GameStop CEO Paul Raines says that yesterday's news that the company wants to get more involved in the development process in order to bring exclusive content to the retailer may have been slightly misunderstood. The Raines interview with Time that comes on the heels of comments from a financial analyst with R.W. Baird who reported that GameStop management was discussing the possibility of ramping up the company's participation in game development during a recent investor meeting.

But Raines sums up his thoughts on that with this comment:

"I think the day you see us in the creative side is when you can tell me we’ve officially lost our minds."

Raines went on to explain with better clarity what GameStop sees its role as in the industry:

"All we’re talking about is extending [our] capital and distribution skill-set into the console publishing and development space," said Raines, pointing out that GameStop already funds developers and publishes mobile games through wholly-owned Kongregate.com. "I don’t think that involves any creative controls or influence at all. I think we’d be foolish to tell developers how to develop games or publishers how to bring product to market."

Raines went on to say that this move is all part of the company "redefine ourselves as a family of specialty retail brands."

Comments

I can see it now you try to buy a video game and you have a gamestop clerk forced to up sell you GameStop exclusive DLC with a mandatory purchase of a year of a crappy magazine I'll never read. Then when you say no your gamestop clerk will refuse to sell you anything or purposely give you the wrong merchandise.